Two months after the opening, the Asian hosted a visit by South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, a politician immensely popular in the Bay Area Korean American community.

Just two weeks ago, South Korea's parliament impeached Roh, though experts on the region's politics expect him to survive.

But neither these inauspicious turns nor the hobbling Bay Area economy kept the museum from having a splendid inaugural year in its first dedicated venue, the old Main Library, reinvented inside by Italian architect Gae Aulenti.

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White House rhetoric placing North Korea in an "axis of evil" cast an early shadow on the museum's plan for a grand inaugural-year show of Korean antiquities, many exhibited outside Asia for the first time. One rash move from either side in Washington, and Pyongyang's war of words might have scotched the project. Few American museums are as vulnerable to the hugger- mugger of geopolitics as the Asian.

In the end "Goryeo Dynasty: Korea's Age of Enlightenment" went off smoothly. The crowning event of the museum's opening season, it reminded everyone of the museum's skill in staging historical shows and its clout in getting unprecedented loans of artifacts.

More than 427,000 visitors came to the new Asian in its first year. An independent survey found nearly 70 percent very pleased by the experience.

"People come in and they're wowed by what they see," said museum director Emily Sano. "We wanted that 'wow' response, and we get it."

Part of the reason: Nearly three-quarters of visitors to the new facility in its inaugural year have been first-timers, including unnumbered tourists.

"That means we've emerged with an identity we can build on because we were able to come to this new location," Sano said.

The Civic Center address has none of the charm of the Golden Gate Park location the Asian had shared with the old de Young Museum since 1966. But lacking a building it can call its own always impedes the growth of a museum's prestige.

"We were always committed to the idea that we have a great collection and it just needed to be better known," Sano said.

The reopening attracted major gifts from collectors, and "there are others in negotiation that I can't say more about yet," Sano said.

The rich redeployment of the permanent collection took many people, including many out-of-town critics, by surprise. The Asian now keeps on view about 2,500 objects it owns, roughly double what the old facility could accommodate. The considerable money spent on casework and lighting in the renovation has paid dividends in visitor enthusiasm.

Another point of pride for Sano is the layout and supporting text of the permanent collection display. "We got a major NEA grant for that," Sano said. "I hear a lot from museum professionals and academics who say ours is the best interpretive material they've seen."

In financial terms, year one has left the museum "with a small surplus," Sano said, despite a long "punch list" of costly little things that still needed doing after the facility began operating.

The Asian, like other museums, remains somewhat at the mercy of the troubled local economy, but support from the new mayoral administration has been strong so far. Mayor Gavin Newsom planned to come across the plaza and cut a birthday cake for the museum Saturday.

The high proportion of first-time visitors raises the question whether the Asian museum can depend on repeat visitors in the future.

"We're studying that," Sano said. "I think people are dazzled when they enter the building, then they get upstairs in the galleries and find it a little overwhelming." What may be needed, she said, is encouragement not to try to see too much on any one occasion.

Sano also expressed satisfaction at the museum's renewed commitment to showing contemporary Asian art. But results have been mixed on that score so far. Few will question the value of giving the West Coast public direct contact with recent art from Asian countries or by Asian artists living in America, such as Li Huayi, whose paintings in a classical Chinese manner are on view now.

A brief survey of contemporary work from Korea was not so persuasive. But the current presentation of sculpture by Thailand's most celebrated modern artist, Moontien Boonma (1953-2000), suggests that it may take years to define a context within which Asian art of recent decades can be fairly evaluated.

The museum's major unfinished business now is construction of the final portion of its new building, referred to in-house as Phase 2.

"We need larger space for special exhibitions" and an auditorium, Sano said. At the end of the inaugural year, completion of Phase 2 "is neither closer nor further off than we imagined," Sano said. Of the estimated $40 million to $60 million needed for it, only $5 million has been committed so far.

As to staff, Sano sees the museum running about as leanly as it can. "Certainly in this climate we're not going to be able to add staff -- one always wishes we could," she said. "But our staff is very conscientious about budgets. We'll maintain our services as high quality and pray that the economy doesn't get any worse."

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